The Daily Ascent

I went to a benefit as my friend Eileen's date, a little under the weather, and when they ran a game where the winner took home a diamond bracelet, I bought two chances and then almost handed them to Eileen because I...

I got sick this week and had to miss an event my best friend Michelle and I had been planning for a month. Staying home was the right call. But then, from my sickbed, I found myself arranging platters and writing...

I got invited to a small dinner this week by a friend I'd drifted from, no falling out, life just loosened us, and it touched me that she'd want me at such an intimate table. Then we ended up in a real conversation...

I went on a date, and it flopped, and I was completely fine with it. Then a friend I love said four words trying to help, and I felt myself get tight. I knew right away she meant well. So the tightness was worth a...

I was staying somewhere beautiful on the east end of Long Island, where the cell service is so spotty it's almost a joke. I was thriving out there, but I couldn't reach my power circle the way I'm used to, so my world...

I was deep in a brutal workout class, everybody shaking, and the teacher said: don't negotiate with yourself, because the minute you start negotiating, you've already lost yourself in this class. And I about fell off...

At my fifteen-years-sober party, I invited a friend from my recovery community, someone who's in the rooms but stays on the edges. I figured he'd drop in for five minutes. Instead he showed up on time and stayed to the...

A friend told me she was jealous of a couple at a party, and she said it like a confession, like she'd done something wrong. It reminded me of a client I had years ago, a sweet man coming out of a really dark time, who...

I threw myself a party for fifteen years sober, and I planned every piece of it alone, right down to buying my own birthday cake. For days my friends kept asking what they could bring, and I kept saying I'm fine, I got...

I do this wild Pilates class on a crazy machine, where you can work off the front, which is the regular hard, or off the back, which is brutal. First day back this fall, the instructor had written the whole class off...

One of my closest friends, a gorgeous storyteller who puts her real life online, posted the other day about how lonely she was feeling. And my stomach dropped, because I don't reach out to her much, and when I looked at...

I sent a friendly note to someone I barely know, the kind you forget about in an hour, and got something clipped back. So I wrote again and asked if she was okay. What came back was that we needed to clear the air, in...

My spiritual advisor was in Africa, shoveling garbage to clear a path to where people were living. And I sent her a voice memo about something bothering me, with a big disclaimer at the front: I know this is nothing...

About five years ago I was deep in a yoga retreat phase, and an email came in about one, and I read half of it. Then I put down the full deposit that same afternoon, glowing. Ready, fire, aim. Then the actual directions...

My friend put off a root canal because she didn't have time. By January she was in agony. And that same week, a woman in one of my groups was asking how to get out of despair. And I kept thinking about that root canal...